The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to traffic scheduling in a multi-hop communications system.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, (e.g., a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
In some deployments, such as a multi-hop deployment, a relay UE may communicate with one or more additional UEs (end device UEs) and act as an intermediary device to allow data to be exchanged between a serving station and an end device UE. For example, if an end device UE resides outside the coverage area of a serving station, the end device UE may synchronize with a relay UE that is in communication with the serving station and data may then be exchanged between the end device UE and the serving station using the relay UE.
During uplink (UL) transmission, when multiple end device UEs are using the same relay UE to exchange data with a serving station, or when multiple relay UEs are communicating with the same serving station, data transmitted from some (or all) of the multiple end device UEs may collide during transmission. Similarly, data transmissions from multiple relay UEs may collide during transmission to the serving station. Further, during downlink (DL) transmission, data transmitted to multiple end device UEs and/or multiple relay UEs may collide during transmission. In such situations, the aforementioned collisions may cause transmission or reception interference and may result in a loss of data between one or more end device UEs, the relay UE, and the serving station.